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IP Security Assurance Working Group

Charter

The Accellera board recently approved the formation of a Working Group to define an IP Security Assurance Specification. The Working Group will provide a security assurance standard for hardware IP and its associated components to address security risks when integrated into embedded systems.

Chair: Brent Sherman, Intel

Vice Chair: Mike Borza, Synopsys

Scope

Currently there is no single standard that addresses security assurance in the development and delivery of intellectual property (IP) to Silicon integrators. With this new standard, user companies will have high confidence that IPs have addressed security concerns at the integration level.

With a single specification, user companies will be able to select the best tool(s) from competing vendors to achieve the best results for their products.

The initial scope for the Working Group is to define an automated systematic approach that can be consistently supported across multiple target implementations. The WG will focus on existing standards that pertain to IP specification, design, verification and integration where security risk is a concern, as well as known security concerns that have been identified by either industry experience or security researchers

Background

There is a certain level of risk when integrating third-party IP (3PIP) into Silicon. The risk stems from unknown behaviors that may occur once integrated, which could result as an exploitable vulnerability. Even if the source was provided, these unknowns may still exist since integrators typically treat 3PIP as "black-box" technology. Silicon providers need a security assurance standard for acceptance before integrating 3PIP in order to minimize risk in their products. High-quality Silicon products are only such when they are built from high-quality IPs.

Join this Working Group

If you are an employee of a member company and would like to join this working group, click here (requires login) and click Join Group. Join requests are moderated by the Working Group Chair.